"What Madness Is This?" Volume I: The Union Forever
- Thread starter Napoleon53
- Start date
A man after my own heart.
Unless the RU declares war on Russia, which I would not expect until Europa has been driven out of North America. Japan doesn't have that much to do so perhaps it would be best to use the Japanese army against California. On the other hand Japan needs somewhere to expand to so Korea/India?
Next chapter we see what Carolina and the Gamble family is up to!
Also, we just passed 200k views, guys! Thank you all so much for reading!!
Also, we just passed 200k views, guys! Thank you all so much for reading!!
Yay, pop open the champagne we've done it. Now onto 300kNext chapter we see what Carolina and the Gamble family is up to!
Also, we just passed 200k views, guys! Thank you all so much for reading!!
Views.
Well done, also when you read the EU stuff you may have noticed a lot of my stuff there...err sorry if you don't like it. If you do like it, thanks.
She should be named Catherine Romanova as well, as a reference to Viktor's daughter in the original Madness-verse.
Why, I'm absolutely positive Chancellor Gamble and his incredible family are doing anything and everything to preserve our Sweet Caroline, the last, best hope of man on Earth! Anyone who says otherwise is obviously some sort of liberty hating radical who needs to deal with the Office of Public Virtue.
HARK THE SOUND!
French Canada will fall, I believe, and there will be a fight over Gran Colombia. My gut tells me that the Union will take Quebec, though the French may hold out. My gut also tells me that California will lose the far eastern half, but otherwise bleeds the Union into a stalemate.
In that case the RU might as well have fought for nothing. I'm not sure that there is space for a stalemate. Either the Yankees break into the Great Valley or they don't:
Look at the map above. Bonapartist California is far bigger. It has half of Colorado/New Mexico, all of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California proper, plus Baja. The Kingdom can easily fortify the mountainous terrain, so I'm saying the Union only gets the eastern half of what's on the mapIn that case the RU might as well have fought for nothing. I'm not sure that there is space for a stalemate. Either the Yankees break into the Great Valley or they don't:
I actually think the Union can take all of Europan North America. Canada is predominantly Anglophone (and probably somewhat sympathetic to the Union) as well as sparsely populated. California can easily be cut off from outside help thanks to Union sea power in the Pacific. Quebec is probably also not too terribly populated outside of a few key urban centers. Add in the fact that the Union has far more experience with industrialized warfare, is not a dependency of a horrifically overextended empire thousands of miles away, and has a great deal of men and resources to throw at the issue and the conclusion I come up with is.... not pretty if you're a Europan. It sure as hell won't be easy, and if the Union decides to bite off more than it can chew their might be a chance for the French to keep parts of Cali, but barring that I'd recommend the non-Inferior locals start reading up on Prophet Burr and learn how to sing Yankee Doodle in the proper key.
That is certain, but the regions that you mentioned are hardly valuable and they would fall anyway if the Great Valley capitulated. The real prize is to the west and a Bonapartist fortress surviving on the other side of the Rockies would be a perennial thorn in the backs of the fascists.
If the only gains that the RU got in the West was some desert plus Colorado then that would not have been worth the price payed in blood as the RU's lack of security in North America would be maintained.
Edit: Also marching straight into the Rockies is a really bad idea.
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This.
I really don't see how the Union is supposed to lose here. I don't even see how it's supposed to be a close-run thing. Mega-France is an extremely powerful nation, but not powerful enough to outfight the RU (which has nearly all the territory and industry of OTL's USA) on North American soil, maintaining supply lines all the way across the Atlantic, at the same time as waging a gigantic war in Europe against the Russians and the Nordreich and the British and the rebellious Germans in the Confederation of the Rhine. (Aside: I definitely wouldn't want to be whoever's in charge of French logistics/war materiel provisions in TTL. They must be living in a horror movie, like a nightmare where you can never wake up.)
The one thing that makes me hesitant to reach this conclusion is that, if Custer (or—at a stretch, if he rises to power earlier than in Classic—Steele) conquers the rest of North America in his time, that won't leave the author's favourite crazed American dictator, Charles Oswald, much left of his canonical role; with both the South and the Europans in North America defeated, there wouldn't be much left for him to do. This pushes me towards the notion that the RU will play their good cards badly, and they'll find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory—or, at least, get a weaker victory than they could and should be able to attain.
…but then again, I thought that in the Great American War, too. I didn't see how the divided Southron nations, with Carolina and Virginia as fierce enemies that I thought wouldn't be on the same side, were supposed to hold off Lincoln and the Union, and of course I knew that in Madness Classic they survived to the 20th century. As Redux had previously been so similar to (an expanded, more detailed version of) Classic, I doubted that @Napoleon53 would really be willing to go for such a dramatic change to the plot-trajectory of the story as to let President Lincoln's Republican Union conquer the Southron nations. Well, I was dramatically wrong.
So perhaps I should be afraid to underestimate the author's willingness to break from Classic and shatter our expectations!
I wonder then, if the RU sees a greater success Oswald might not be as successful of a leader as in Classic. People have been noting that the RU seems almost designed to tear itself to shreds in a civil war, so if @Napoleon53 goes in a dramatically different direction, it could be a civil war of literally apocalyptic scale and consequences that marks Oswald's time.
EDIT: One idea could be that Oswald comes to power during the height of RU triumph, but the country falls into a slump from the combined weight of everything wrong with Union society. Then, somehow as the people begin to look for someone, anyone, to blame for the slump, it comes out Oswald is an Inferior. Chaos follows.
EDIT: One idea could be that Oswald comes to power during the height of RU triumph, but the country falls into a slump from the combined weight of everything wrong with Union society. Then, somehow as the people begin to look for someone, anyone, to blame for the slump, it comes out Oswald is an Inferior. Chaos follows.
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Was going back through some of the earlier posts and came across this, which sparked an idea....
Perhaps instead of doing an Anglo-Saxonification of English, the Union just goes straight to the heart of linguistic insanity and makes an Americanized Hebrew their official language. Alternatively, they could make it like a second language that's taught throughout school, alongside the new Saxonized English. IOTL, actual American Puritan Patriots advocated the move as a way to move the US away from England culturally, and I assume because it was the ancient language of the Chosen People and they thought of themselves as being the descendants of the Chosen.
I'm loving the decent into war here but I don't think the RU is ready for how difficult an invasion of California could actually be. Granted, technology will help, but the Sierra Nevada mountains, the open desert, thick redwood forest, ect. Even if everything goes to plan, asymmetrical warfare is gonna be a huge problem for any occupation with the natural defenses for a guerilla campaign.
While I mostly agree with the discussion regarding how difficult California will be to take, I feel people are under estimating the role in the navy in all this. after all, if the RU can maintain naval superiority they should be able to andvance up and down the coasts relatively easily. Of course, casualties will still be high but the RU has the people and fanaticism to spare
This seems to be the biggest factor on the RU's side. Regardless of how horrific the battlefield or the terrain, the RU can keep throwing bodies at the problem until the enemy breaks or hold the line until Goodyear scientists can cook up another horror to unleash upon the world. The only way you can survive against the RU is drink the cool-aid, embrace the Madness, and become as scary militarised as them.
That said, it would be interesting to see a rump California survive. (I like rump states, so sue me) Maybe in their desperation they turn away from France and to Russia or China, becoming puppets to possible monsters but monsters that can protect them.
I'm eager to see what Ireland's reaction to the madness finally breaking loose. I imagine from their perspective, it's the start of the apocalypse. The Americans and later English have made their thoughts on the Irish people clear for a long time and the Kingdom harbours no illusions that the war with the Anglo's is about: Survival or utter extinction.
I get the feeling that Ireland maybe be able to survive by the skin of its teeth if every single person plays a part in fighting.
Actually I even think majority of Protestants would fight for Ireland because it's the Devil they know than the Devil they don't.
